January 11, 2012 10:04 PM UTC

State GOP lawyering up to fight Shaffer's pass-the-budget-or-get-spanked bill?

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• by: Jason Salzman

On KLZ’s Grassroots Radio Colorado yesterday, Sen. Kent Lambert ratcheted up the GOP opposition to Colorado Senate President Brandon Shaffer’s bill mandating that legislators take a pay and benefit cut if they require a special session to pass a budget bill.

Lambert’s attacks, apparently reflecting conversations he’s had with lawyers about Shaffer’s bill, go beyond what he was telling the AP yesterday.

Here’s what he said on the radio.

“There might be some legal problems with doing this in that this may get crosswise with the Colorado Constitution in a couple ways. Article V of the Colorado Constitution establishes what the Legislature has to do. And it provides some rules. One thing is, you can’t bind your caucus into a position like this until a vote is taken. And another one is, you can’t unduly influence legislators to vote in a certain way before the vote is taken. So this is a nonstarter. You have to mark it up as sort of a humorous distraction from the business at hand.”

I thought Republicans love moms and dads who make sure the kids know they’ll get spanked if they get out of line. Republicans say the Dems are the ones who will accept excuses for not passing a budget and serve hot chocolate to the bad children anyway.

The GOP opposition to Shaffer’s pass-the-budget-or-get-a-pay-cut bill seems to reverse the GOP talking point, and therefore should fall into the radar screen of the news media.